The Killing Edge

Victoria laughed. “I guess he could be a sportsman. He looks like one. Odd for a designer, but I suppose you can be artistic and … masculine. Anyway, he’s hot, and he’s obviously into you. I mean, you guys already took off for a walk on the beach.”

“Oh, yeah. Right. He’s into me,” Chloe murmured dryly.

Victoria waved to the man she knew as Jack Smith, smiling. He smiled, too, and returned her wave, as she suggested sagely, “Give him a chance. Even Lacy was drooling over him last night.”

“Lacy has been known to drool over a correctly proportioned blow-up doll,” Chloe pointed out, grinning. She didn’t intend the words viciously—Lacy readily admitted that she was interested only in sleek, muscle-bound men. Arm candy, of the male variety.

“Hey, he might be arm candy,” Victoria said, as if reading her mind, “but he was polite, and he didn’t get sloshed. You’re pickier than Lacy. It’s like you’re looking for a superhero. You’re such a do-gooder yourself, it’s like you have tunnel vision. If a guy isn’t trying to save the world, you’re not interested.”

“That’s not true.”

“Then you should go for him. I think he’s perfect,” Victoria said.

Except that he’s a liar and a sham.

“Get out, go. He’s waiting,” Victoria said.

Chloe climbed out of the car, waving goodbye to Victoria, who waved back and drove away.

Chloe stood without speaking and stared at Luke Cane.

“May we talk?” he asked her.

Chloe lifted her hands. “I suppose so. You know where I live, so I can’t exactly hide from you. And you’re safe enough, according to Stuckey.”

“I’m really sorry we got off to a bad start. I’d like to try again,” he told her.

She was sure he wasn’t actually sorry, that he just thought it was the right thing to say, but she offered him a dry smile and said, “Okay, talk.”

“I need your help,” he said flatly.

She looked up at him, suddenly wanting to say no, and run into her house and hide, but she knew that wasn’t a response to what he’d said but to her own response to him. She tried analyzing her feelings toward him, then gave up. It was chemistry. Just pheromones, aroused by his face, his eyes, the way he moved, the sound of his voice.

“Please. I really need your help,” he repeated, and she could tell he meant it.

She forced herself to shrug casually. “All right. Come on in and we’ll talk.”

“Nice place,” he said, looking admiringly at the main house.

“I don’t live there—I’m over on the side, in the carriage house. The main house is my uncle Leo’s.”

“So at least it’s all in the family, right?”

“Yes, it’s all in the family.”

He waited as she keyed in the code for the gate, then followed her along the tile walkway that led to the entrance of the refurbished carriage house. She could feel him behind her all the way.

She opened her door and keyed another code into the alarm pad.

“It’s a good setup, after what you’ve been through,” he said, nodding. “All the security, and your uncle living right next door.”